COUNTY REINSTATES SOME FUNDS FOR DARE

The Jackson County Legislature on Monday voted to restore funding for
area Drug Abuse Resistance Education programs to 2003 levels.

Without the additional $118,000, police departments said they would
have had to cut DARE programs this year.

"No one will have to cut a DARE officer or a DARE program," said
Legislator Dan Tarwater, the sponsor of the proposal and chairman of
the Legislature's anti-drug committee.

The additional money will come from the county's surplus fund for the
Community-Backed Anti-Drug Tax known as COMBAT. Earlier this year, the
amount of COMBAT money given to DARE was cut $231,000, or about 18
percent of the $1.29 million the programs received in 2003. In March,
the Legislature restored $112,630 mistakenly cut due to a math error.

Law enforcement officials on Monday thanked the legislators for
restoring $188,000 to DARE, but said they need another $291,000 to
meet their entire 2004 COMBAT funding requests. The officers
questioned why more money was not available to DARE while COMBAT
surplus funds were being spent on increases to other anti-drug tax
programs.

Sgt. Steve Seward, the DARE supervisor for the Kansas City Police
Department, said funding for his department has dropped about $110,000
over the past six years.

The request for more DARE funds "is not a money grab An injustice
has been done," Seward said.

COMBAT is a quarter-cent sales tax used to fund law enforcement, drug
treatment and drug prevention programs.

On Monday, legislative auditor Kelly Markham Stegall issued a report
about how $6.4 million from COMBAT surplus funds is earmarked to be
spent this year. Spending includes:

* $2.3 million for improvements at the county jail and criminal
justice buildings.

* $270,000 for the county's information system.

* $187,600 for the circuit court's computer system.

Stegall said in her report that, "The funds were spent on programs
other than those designated" in the 1995 guidelines adopted by the
county Legislature.

A spokesman for County Executive Katheryn Shields said spending on the
jail was included in the guidelines, but argued the guidelines do not
apply to COMBAT surplus funds.

However, Independence Police Chief Fred Mills continued to question
the surplus fund expenditures.

Troy Thomas, the county's chief financial officer, said the questioned
expenditures paid for programs involving drug offenders, drug
treatment and the administrative costs of COMBAT.